The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground | Hacker News Reader

The American Middle Class Is Losing Ground

pewsocialtrends.org

24 pointskushti10 comments

> “middle-income” Americans are defined as adults whose annual household income is two-thirds to double the national median, about $42,000 to $126,000 annually in 2014 dollars for a household of three.

$42k for a household of three seems very low to be considered middle-class. I suppose in rural areas that makes sense, but in most population centers that would be fairly impoverished.

In fairness to the authors of the study, their challenge was to create one number for the entire country.

Conceptually speaking, I think we generally understand what middle income means. People living plainly and comfortably who don't have lavish things or have to surmount debt to stay out of homelessness.

I'm pretty surprised how high that number is.

I live in Los Angeles. I have a one bedroom apt and a 10 year old car. I eat in, try to be thrifty, take trips a few times a year but stay in modest accommodations or couch surf.

With tax, I'd need about 55k to support this lifestyle with zero savings.

That's $26/hr fulltime - a number probably out of reach for the majority of the city workforce.

I wonder how most people get by.

I think people should openly discuss these things - you can't create a transparent open market of human capital if we can't culturally speak of how much we charge and get.

Income disclosure is a method of self organizing towards a more equitable society.

upper class increased from 29% to 49% from 1970 to today

lower class decreased from 10% to 9% from 1970 to today

that looks pretty good to me

Have you read the article, by any chance?

Are you claiming that 49% of people are upper class, as in earn over $145,000 in states where that's the cutoff such as Maryland and Alaska?

Half the country earning at least $70/hr and employed full time. Really?

Only 9% earn under $40k in those states?

Can you cite something?

I claim that it's more like 7% upper, 49% middle, 44% lower and not a world of $170,000 gas station attendants and $150,000 dishwashers.

Looks pretty out of touch with any reality to me...

49% upper class? Where did you get those bogus numbers? The actual numbers given (and even those skewed) are about 15%.

Those percentages are total income, not population. You've got it completely wrong.

this. here's the graph which clearly labels it as aggregate income. http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2015/12/ST_2015-12-09_m...

You misread the chart. It means the upper class' share of total income increased from 29% to 49%, while the middle class went from making 62% of all income, to 43%.

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